239873 Icequeens and Spitfires: Hollywood's Female Icons (S) (SoSe 2012)

Hollywood cinema of the 1940s and 1950s brimmed with iconic females: Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly, Rita Hayworth or Elizabeth Taylor to name but a few. With some of these famous actresses, a career was only possible once they catered to their typecast -Marilyn Monrow as the blonde bombshell for instance -, others managed to grow and change, and finally, preciously few were even allowed to age on the silverscreen. The repercussions of these iconization and labelling processes can still be felt in 21st century movie productions.
In this seminar, we will critically examine the politics of movie typecasting in terms of gender categorization and marketing strategies. In groups, we will investigate classic Hollywood films through this lens and include contemporary female celebrities in our discussions.